


i don't believe in love

by BloodRaven55



Category: RWBY
Genre: But it's basically, Canon Compliant, Heavy Angst, Multi, One Shot, but with a focus on summer's death and its role in her path, i'm sorry but i had Angsty Thoughts™ and y'all are gonna suffer with me, so in case anyone was still wondering, the timeline is all over the place from pre-canon to post-canon, there is, this is primarily a sort of character study of raven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 17:23:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19977745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BloodRaven55/pseuds/BloodRaven55
Summary: Something's wrong. Raven can feel it.





	i don't believe in love

**Author's Note:**

> So this was inspired by [this absolutely stunning piece of art](https://skyrlerman.tumblr.com/post/178268804141/i-wonder-if-ravens-semblance-still-works-if-the), and y'all should go check it out if you haven't already.
> 
> Anyway, this is a little different to what I usually write but I'm pretty happy with it so I'm keen to know people's thoughts. If I screwed up anything with the timelines or whatever I'm sorry but I did my best to try and piece it together from everything we've been told so far.
> 
> With all that said... enjoy!

Something's wrong. Raven can feel it.

She can feel it in the air. In her bones. In her heart.

Normally she's hyper aware of all her teammates—of everyone she's bonded to—but right now something is missing.

Some _one_ is missing.

Her sword cuts through another Grimm and she dodges back to avoid the jaws of the two that take its place. The movement brings her back to back with someone, and she doesn’t need to see or hear to know who it is— to recognise her own flesh and blood.

“There are too many of them,” Qrow shouts over the sounds of the battle. “We have to get to Summ—”

Raven doesn't voice the fear weighing ice cold in her gut—that there's no longer a Summer to get to—both because she doesn't want to and because she's distracted by the sight of a Grimm appearing behind an unsuspecting Taiyang. The portal has formed before she even has to try, summoned by her desire to protect those dearest to her, and her blade skewers the soulless mass of red and black before it can leap.

Then her heart freezes in her chest, skipping a beat like the effort of keeping her alive is too great. It starts again in double time as a burning sensation erupts along her cheek, and it is only her instincts that save her as she plunges her sword into the beast's heart, watching its scarlet eyes flicker and die only inches from her own before it crumbles to dust at her feet.

Tai calls her name, loud and urgent, but she can't hear him.

“Raven!”

She can't hear anything.

Blood trickles down her cheek, the price of losing focus and forgetting to maintain her aura, but she can't feel it. Her grip on her weapon tightens until her knuckles are white, enough that she knows it should hurt, but her body is dead.

She can't feel anything.

Where before she could feel Summer's limbs like her own, Summer's love like her own, Summer's _fear_ like her own, now there's nothing.

But that can't be right.

Once again the portal is shimmering in front of her before she's made a conscious decision, but this time to lead her away from her teammates rather than towards them. She can hear Qrow's voice raised in confusion somewhere to her left, she can see Tai reaching out to her on the other side of the blazing red doorway, and she steps through.

She staggers out into a clearing—somewhere north of where she was before but still inside the forest, she imagines, since that was where Summer was the last they knew—and her first thought is that it's too quiet. There are no sounds of battle, no growls like those of the Grimm they'd been fighting... not even any birdsong.

She finally dares to look around, and the scene is peaceful— undisturbed. Which only makes it all the more disturbing. And then her eye is caught by a splash of red amongst the sea of green, and she knows what it is before she turns her gaze upon it. She doesn't want to look, but she _needs_ to.

Her worst fears are the shape of a white cloak spattered with crimson, and she falls to her knees, emptying the contents of her stomach onto the grass.

* * *

“Did you not hear Ozpin? There’s no way to stop her!”

“No,” Summer says, low and calm in a stark contrast to Raven’s panicked tone, but there’s a hint of desperation in even her voice. “I don’t believe that. If we work together we can—”

“We can what?” Raven’s anger fades in an instant, leaving only defeat. “Die for nothing like all of his other little toy soldiers?”

Summer’s face falls like she’s been struck, and Tai moves to stand next to her— Raven knows he isn’t taking a side, but she can’t help feeling that he’s choosing Summer over her.

“Raven,” Qrow says, firm but sympathetic as he rests a hand on her shoulder. She can see the disappointment on his face, though, and it stings. “That’s enough.”

It hits her in this single moment that she has no place here anymore, and the realisation brings bile rising in her throat.

“I agree,” she says, and runs for the first time.

* * *

The numbness starts to dissipate as the final tethers between them break, her Semblance—her soul—accepting the loss at the same speed as her mind, and she stands on shaking legs, but not before she's retrieved the cloak from the ground. She doesn't know what she'll do with it yet, but she refuses to leave the last proof of Summer's existence in the middle of nowhere to be forgotten.

She should rejoin Qrow and Tai, tell them what's happened, but when she wills her legs to move or a portal to open she finds herself incapable of acting. What would be the point? No matter how many Grimm they slaughter, Salem will still be there. This war of Ozpin's has already claimed far too many lives. Now another is gone—a life with far more value than his, or her own—and there's no end in sight.

* * *

The last person she wants to see stops far too conveniently at the base of the tree that she’s currently using as a vantage point. Summer shoots a pointed glance up at her, and Raven begrudgingly drops down from her branch, feeling her body twist and rebuild as a human finishes the descent that a bird began.

She plants her back against the bark and stares fixedly at a lone dandelion growing in the grass at her feet, refusing to give her former leader the satisfaction of eye contact, though she knows Summer can read her like a book regardless. She knows because Summer is smiling in that amused, knowing way she always used to, and Raven can’t bear to look at it right now.

“What do you want?” The words come out soft instead of hard like she intended, and she kicks frustratedly at the weed. _That’s what it is_ , she reminds herself. _A weed_. _No matter how pretty it looks._

“I want you to stop hiding.” She keeps her gaze trained unwaveringly on the ground, but she can hear that Summer’s expression has gone from light to serious in the span of just a few seconds. “I want you to stop running. I want you to stop lying to yourself.”

There’s a beat of silence, and for a moment Raven thinks that’s it. She looks over to the garden where Tai is talking to Qrow, rocking his and Summer’s child—Ruby, did they call her?—back and forth in his arms. She feels a pang of longing for that sense of kinship—of belonging in a group not built on violence and greed—but she swallows it down.

“And I want you to come back.”

Oh.

She finally looks up to meet Summer’s eyes, and she knows there’s no refusing her. She sighs with the weight of the inevitable consequences of her choice, and she shakes her leader’s hand.

“Fine,” she says. “One more hopeless suicide mission.”

She doesn’t know it yet, but of all the bad decisions she’ll make in her life, this is the one that she’ll always regret the most.

“There’s always hope, Raven.”

* * *

There’s no hope.

A portal does form then, reacting to the doubt rising in her thoughts and the bitterness swelling in her chest.

After a moment of hesitation, Raven runs for the second time.

She tries not to think about how the doorway she's using to escape is the same shade as Summer's blood, still bright against the pale fabric— she'd rather remember red as the colour of a rose.

* * *

 _Summer would understand_ , she thinks as she watches her daughter search another less than reputable establishment for her, knowing that she could speak to Yang but choosing not to anyway.

 _Summer would understand_ , she thinks as she takes the life of an innocent girl whose trust she has earned to spare her the feeling of being hunted and trapped for the rest of her life, bound by a destiny she had no freedom to choose.

She knows it's true.

 _Summer would understand_ , she thinks as another village falls to her and her men, repeating a mantra of _they're weak_ and _the Grimm would have killed them anyway_ and _they'd never survive_ and _it's a mercy_ in her head.

She no longer knows if it's true, and sleep is hard to find no matter what reassurances she tells herself.

 _Summer would understand_ , she thinks as she fails her daughter once more, painting a target on Yang's back because she's made her own skin too thick to ever be marked again.

She knows it isn't true—there are empty bottles next to her bed that prove as much—and sleep is impossible to find no matter what lies she tells herself.

* * *

The clifftop looks the same as it always does.

The grave is always clean, untarnished by the stains that warp the fabric resting in the earth underneath the stone.

Summer’s cloak was all that was left— all that they had to bury. She gave it to Qrow and Tai before the service that she couldn’t bring herself to attend. And hours later she knelt in front of the grave in the dark of the night, her tears blurring the inscription she didn’t want to read.

Even now she can’t help thinking of all the ways she might have stopped this.

She could have turned Summer down when she asked her to join the mission, and maybe then none of them would have been here that day.

She could have left Qrow and Tai to handle the Grimm, created the portal to Summer sooner, and maybe she would have arrived in time.

She could have— she could have done so many things.

She _should_ have done so many things.

 _Coward_ , she thinks.

She knows it’s true.

* * *

Raven watches as her daughter curls into the one with the dark hair and the sharp tongue, a smile more peaceful than Raven’s ever seen from her before gracing her features as she nuzzles into her partner’s neck. Part of her expected Yang to be stubborn—to never take the girl back after she already left her once—but the part of her that was proven right knew that her daughter has too big a heart for that.

She wonders if she could have fixed things too, if she’d gone back and stayed.

If she’d been braver.

It doesn’t matter, though. Her daughter has made her choice, and chosen well, and Raven’s own choice is already made for her.

 _You have a good heart, no matter what you think_ , Summer once said. Raven didn’t believe her then, and she doesn’t believe her now. But maybe she doesn’t need a good heart— maybe she just needs one moment of selflessness to do what she should have done long ago.

To do one thing that would make Summer proud.

To do one thing that will make herself proud.

She takes off without a backward glance, soaring over the canopy of trees into the dark of the night.

 _Coward_ , she thinks.

She knows it’s still true, but maybe just this once she can be something else.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> As always any comments except for non-constructive criticism are not just welcomed but immensely appreciated and I'll see you all next time <3


End file.
